LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

P VA ! S" - 

Chap.. Copyright No. 

ShellJo-G 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LOOK UP AND HOPE 



Look Up and Hope 



BY 



MRS. BALLINGTON BOOTH 



vol 



MV 6 ' 



NEW YORK 
A. D. F. RANDOLPH COMPANY 

1897 






Copyright, 1897, 
By the A. D. F. Randolph Co. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.Ac 



LOOK UP AND HOPE. 

T T THITE lilies raise proudly their 
graceful heads ; buds and blos- 
soms break forth, and to the kiss of 
sunbeams the little birds twitter as the 
golden sun casts his first shafts across 
the sky, and all Nature wakes, while 
fragrance and song fill the air. 

Easter and spring have come to 
us together, and bring to our hearts 
thoughts of new life and Heaven-born 
hope. How welcome is the time of 
flowers and song-birds, soft breezes 
and warm sunshine, after the dark, 



Look Up and Hope. 



cold hopeless days of winter and the 
boisterous winds of March ! 

A writer has said that cold shrivels 
up the little wings of dreams. I have 
always disliked winter. It seems in- 
deed a time when dreams and hopes 
and sweet thoughts were impeded in 
their flight, and had to bury them- 
selves deep in the heart to keep warm. 
Leaden skies and chilly fogs, snow, sleet, 
and rain weigh down not only the at- 
mosphere, but prove often a check to 
the spirit and a burden to the thoughts ; 
and it is truer still when the surroundings 
are gloomy, and every effort of will and 
mind must be exerted to throw off the 
sad influences. 



Look Up and Hope. 



As the days have grown longer and 
the sky at even-time has begun to blush 
with mellow lights, and the coming of 
birds and flowers have told of the glad- 
ness of spring, my heart has bounded, 
for it has seemed to me that fresh hopes 
and sweet whiffs of free air and stray 
beams of golden sunlight would soon be 
bringing gladdening influences to hearts 
I love in prison cells. It is impossible 
to get much into one letter ; impossible 
to write one's heart-thoughts and feel- 
ings even in a column or two of print, 
so I welcome this chance to send some 
messages to you through the medium 
of this little booklet, which will be 
more enduring than a letter, and more 



Look Up and Hope. 



personal than notes printed in the 
" Gazette." 

Easter time ! After the winter, sweet 
spring ; after the time of frozen brooks 
and bare, naked trees, fresh singing rivu- 
lets and budding green ! One seems to 
speak of death and suffering, the other 
of life and victory. Look back at what 
preceded this glad day of hope and 
life. The Christ of Easter was also the 
Christ of Calvary. Think of the dark 
side of the picture : the night of agony 
in Gethsemane, alone, suffering, forsaken, 
and betrayed; the trial in which the 
divine defendant stood arraigned before 
unjust judge and bitter enemies ; sworn 
against falsely, insulted, condemned 



Look Up and Hope, 



amid the acclamations of an incensed 
mob. Christ the Convict bears His 
cross up Calvary, bowed with a grief no 
one can estimate. Christ the Saviour 
dies in agony, and darkness reigns upon 
the scene ! 

The greatest darkness often comes 
before the dawn, and so the dawn of 
that first Easter, after the awful scene 
of Calvary, brought to the world the 
brightest day- dawn of hope that ever 
could have come to man. The Christ 
who looked down on the empty grave 
that could not hold Him ; the Lord who 
looked out with love to the dead souls 
to whom He could bring life ; the 
world's Redeemer, who passed through 



io Look Up and Hope, 

the golden gates in company with the 
thief whom He called to His side in 
those last moments, — could indeed look 
back and say, " O Death, where is thy 
sting ! O Grave, where is thy victory ! " 

The message He sends to sorrowing 
hearts, the message He would bring to 
burdened, weary ones still in the dark ; 
the thought that the song of birds and 
sweetness of flowers lifting their heads 
to the spring sunshine would whisper 
over and over again to the messenger- 
winds this spring-tide is, " Look up and 
Hope ! " To tiny blades of grass push- 
ing their way through the cold ground, 
the sunbeams said, " Look up and 
Hope ; " and the more they looked up 



Look Up and Hope. u 

the faster they grew, till the barren 
brown earth was clothed in their fresh 
spring verdure. " Look up and Hope/' 
whispered . the wind to the close furled 
buds on the apple-trees, and they waited 
and trusted, and now the bare branches 
are bare no longer, but a mass of snowy 
whiteness and blushing pink, while busy 
bees and happy birds rejoice in the 
fragrance of the blossoms. How could 
that old knotted tree become so beauti- 
ful, and the brown earth so soft with its 
carpet of green? Well, there was some- 
thing above worth looking to, something 
worth trusting, even in those early chilly 
days of spring. From above came the 
gentle rain and the sweet dew, and more 



12 Look Up and Hope. 

than all the sunshine, warming, cheering, 
life-giving, and at his touch cold and 
darkness vanished. 

So to the souls dark and dreary, cold 
and hopeless, comes the message, " Look 
up and Hope ; " and as they look up they 
find that comfort and love, sympathy and 
hope, come from above, and better than 
all, the dear Sun of Righteousness with 
healing in His wings and life in His 
touch looks down in loving response 
and transforming power. 

Sometimes one is tempted to think 
the night very, very dark, as one looks 
on the ground, where not an inch of the 
path can be seen, and into the shadows, 
so gloomily impenetrable that one can 



Look Up and Hope. 13 

see nothing but blackness; but when 
one looks up, steadily up to the sky 
above, star after star shines forth with 
its message of hope, of infinite might 
and watchful care. I have heard it said 
that astronomers have rarely been in- 
fidels. The geologist who digs down 
into the earth, who studies stones and 
strata, fossils and bones, may become so 
filled with his theories and dead, dry 
knowledge, that the instincts of the 
heart that should turn to the Infinite 
become petrified, and his mind exalts 
itself against its Creator and rules out the 
tender impulses of the heart. With the 
one who studies the stars, who spends his 
time watching those worlds upon worlds, 



14 Look Up and Hope. 

those suns and moons and flying fiery 
comets, it is not so. He sees the mighty 
ruling controlling power; he feels the 
smalmess and weakness of human 
strength; he stands awed and silenced 
before One who is too great to doubt. 
But what have stars and budding flowers 
and singing birds to do with the hearts in 
prison to whom I am writing? Starlit 
heavens cannot be very clearly seen from 
barred cell windows : budding flowers 
will blossom to gladden other eyes, while 
their eyes grow weary gazing on bare 
walls, and the song-birds do not come to 
sing to them, but nest in the far-away 
fresh forests amid greenness and freedom 
and blossoms. Well, they have just this 



Look Up and Hope. 15 

much to do with the "boys " in prison. 
I want their thoughts to fly beyond the 
bars and walls, and gather from these 
hopeful, brighter things in life the lesson 
of comfort they can bring. Pure thoughts 
are like the bees that leave the hive and 
fly hither and thither, gathering honey 
from clover and rose, or from myrtle 
and honeysuckle, and come back with 
their precious store to enrich the comb. 
Hopeless, evil thoughts are ever flying 
back into the shadow of the night, and 
like the bat, they seek the darkest corners 
and hide from the pure, sweet sunlight. 

But what have stars, flowers, and birds 
to do with you, did I ask? Well, I think 
the stars can speak of hope, — strong 



1 6 Look Up and Hope. 

true inspired hope, that lifts us from our 
hopeless little selves, up, up to God, and 
they tell us that for us in our once dark 
sky He has Himself placed gleams of 
heavenly light. Flowers pure and fra- 
grant bring their message of new life, — 
a life that can be pure and beautiful ; a 
life that can not only be lived above the 
stain and corruption that would tend to 
spoil it, but a life that can be lived for 
others, — for no flower blossoms for itself 
alone. Then do not the songs of birds 
speak of gladness of heart, of joy, of 
victory, such as can come to the soul 
alone who has been made free by the 
love of Christ, and filled with the dear 
spirit which He can shed abroad within it ? 



Look Up and Hope. ij 

Sometimes the clouds of past failure 
and sorrow hang so low and prove so 
impenetrable as to make it hard to be- 
lieve that there is any star shining behind 
the clouds for them. The awful past is 
so dark and vivid in its haunting mem- 
ories, that it not only blights the present 
and shuts out the comforting star-gleams, 
but it sends forth its gloomy shadows to 
overcast the future, and like a dread 
nightmare it rises and blocks every avenue 
to which the longing thoughts would turn 
for relief. The past is dead if you will 
but believe it; let it die indeed this 
Easter-tide, and from its grave let sweet 
Hope arise, pure and fragrant as the 
flower from the earth. Past failures, dis- 



1 8 Look Up and Hope. 

appointments, and sins must not prove the 
chilly frost that will blight the buds of 
promise ; must not blow like the cold 
chill winds to shrivel the little wings of 
sweeter dreams. Rather let them do 
their work and prove to us the lessons 
that will make the future stronger, brighter, 
and better. Trees are fertilized by their 
own dead leaves and branches; the 
wind comes and shakes from the tree its 
seared, yellow leaves; the winter comes 
and breaks away the tangled branches; 
and as they lay down around its roots 
they sink into the soil, so that it can 
often be said that the forest rises and 
throws up into the air its glad, green 
branches, gaining strength from the losses 



Look Up and Hope, 19 

of the past. So let it be with the losses 
and failures of your past ! They have 
been sinful, dark, and hopeless, but from 
this experience you can draw lessons 
which will make the future brighter than 
it ever otherwise could have been. From 
the wasted hours and the many errors of 
a sinful life, new hopes and brave resolves 
may spring, chasing the memory of the 
past and reaching out to the hopes of the 
future. 

Yesterday now is a part of forever ; 

Bound up in a sheaf which God holds tight, 
With glad days, and sad days, and bad days 
which never 
Shall visit us more with their bloom or their 

blight, 
Their fulness of sunshine or sorrowful night. 



20 Look Up and Hope. 

Let them go since we cannot relieve them. 

Cannot undo and cannot atone ; 
God in his mercy receive, forgive them I 

Only the new days are our own. 

To-day is ours, and to-day alone. 

When we leave the past we naturally 
look into the future. To some it holds 
nothing, to others a delusive prospect; 
and yet to all it may hold, if they will 
but see it, a true strong gleam of hope. 

While crossing the desert in California 
in the fall of last year I looked up from my 
writing and saw gleaming in the distance 
a beautiful silvery lake. Amid that arid 
country, composed of alkali desert, bare 
rocks, and grey sage-bush, it was indeed a 
welcome sight as it lay, calm and bright, 
reflecting the rocks and hills on its placid 



Look Up and Hope. 21 

breast. I thought how the weary travel- 
lers who crossed that stretch of country 
in the pioneer days must have welcomed 
the sight of it. "What lake is that? " I 
asked the porter. " Lake I Why, that 's 
no lake," he answered disdainfully, " it is 
only a mirage." As I watched the cruel, 
deceptive waters that falsely shimmered 
where in reality was only arid sand, I 
thought of the despair just such a sight 
had often brought to the thirsty, fainting 
traveller. So are often self-made plans, 
worldly ambitions, earthly affections, 
bright, promising, and hopeful as they 
may seem to the weary longing heart and 
struggling empty life that reaches out to 
grasp them. But alas ! they fade and 



22 Look Up and Hope. 

vanish, and leave the one who has fol- 
lowed so hard after them weary, discour- 
aged, and sick at heart. 

The hope that Christ gives is one so 
sweet, so lasting, so inspiring, that those 
who have followed its gleam have found 
that it pointed as unmistakably to life 
as the Star of Bethlehem did to the Christ- 
babe's manger, — new, glad, risen life, 
before which the darkness flies away 
and tears are lighted with a rainbow 
glory. 

Life ! What a wonderful word that is 
in counter-distinction to the word Death, 
with all its thoughts of cold, stiff helpless- 
ness and its awful irrevocableness. A 
worm has eaten its way to the roots of 



Look Up and Hope. 23 

your plant and blighted it; its fresh, 
green leaves are limp and yellow; the 
stems are shrivelled, and the flowers droop, 
and the little buds which will never now 
unfold, drop off, and soon it stands a 
lifeless, sapless thing, worthless and un- 
sightly. 

You take tenderly from the grass the 
little songster who has fallen, pierced by 
a cruel shot ; the eyes grow dim, and the 
little head falls limply from side to side ; 
the wings lie helpless as you stretch them 
out, feather by feather. No longer will 
that little throat be filled with song-joy; 
never again will those pinions soar up, up 
towards Heaven. Life has gone, and 
nothing is left but the poor little feathered 



24 Look Up and Hope. 

body, soon to become a prey to the insect 
world of a lower order. 

Have we not all sat by the bedside of 
some loved one after the spirit has flown ; 
pressed the cold hand from which no 
answering touch was felt ; called the 
dear name in an agony of grief, but to 
receive no answer from the still lips? 
Death ! death in the physical world is an 
awful thing, — so real, so cold, so inevi- 
table, so impossible to change or over- 
come, that its thought has become a 
dread to all living things, and its ap- 
proach casts a dark shadow that hushes 
mirth and robs the sunlight of its very 
brightness. 

What about death in the spiritual world ? 



Look Up and Hope. 25 

It cannot be quite so clearly discerned by 
the onlooker, does not seem so awful to 
the world because it does not affect the 
sight, hearing, touch, or other senses ; but 
in reality it does affect not only the life 
to come, but the present. We cannot go 
to our work or pleasures, meet our sorrows, 
carry our cares, or plan our future with a 
dead soul within us without its condition 
being a constant menace to our temporal 
safety, and without its having a deep, 
marked influence upon our thoughts, 
actions, and character. A soul deaf to 
God's voice is very easily charmed by 
the voice of the tempter. An eye blind 
to the purity and righteousness of a Christ- 
following life and to the claims of its 



26 Look Up and Hope. 

Saviour looks all too keenly and longingly 
on evil, and the pride of life, and on those 
things that can but curse and blight where 
they are followed. A heart that answers 
not to the great love divine, that has been 
cold and hard, that has shut itself against 
tender pleadings and earnest prayers, is 
soil prepared indeed for all the seeds and 
influences of evil that can be cast into it 
by the enemy of man's soul. Such a 
heart may readily break human law and 
lay aside human ideas of rectitude and 
honor, because it has in it no power to 
control, no life to inspire. 

But when we speak of poor, dead 
souls we need not speak hopelessly as we 
do when the physical life is gone out. 



Look Up and Hope. 27 

The bird, the flower, the loved human 
body lie helpless, and we can only hide 
them away under the green mother-earth 
that will cover and enfold them ; but 
in the spiritual world all is different. 
There, the risen Lord, the Conqueror of 
all death, and the One at whose touch 
the young man of Nain arose, at the 
sound of whose voice Lazarus came 
forth, stands ready and waiting to bring 
back life, and that life everlasting. The 
Hand that gave the touch of healing to 
the leper, brought sight to the blind, and 
made the lame to walk ; that thrust back, 
at its stretching forth, disease and death 
itself, is just as powerful, just as tender, 
just as near to help to-day as ever it was 



28 Look Up and Hope, 

in the days of old, and the Christ-hand 
brings in its touch Life. How strange 
and wonderful has this new life seemed 
to some of you who have already found 
it ! The old desires, old temptations, 
and old habits that seemed so absolutely 
unconquerable as to become ruling 
powers in your life, have vanished like 
shadows before the sunlight. Yesterday 
they were chains that wrapped in grim 
slavery your poor heart, — to-day they 
lie in broken fragments at your feet, and 
you look down upon them with a song of 
triumph on your lips. What your own 
poor hands could never have accom- 
plished, what your own resolutions and 
efforts would have failed in breaking, has 



Look Up and Hope, 29 

been done by the divine power that 
brings in deliverance and transformation 
with its entrance. Now you know full 
well that I believe in the possibility of 
this wonderful new life, coming to those 
who are shut in prison cells, as truly as it 
can come to those in happy homes and 
costly churches, who have never known 
the shame and sorrow of prison life. 
For my part I am inclined to believe 
from what I have learned of the Christ- 
heart that the dear Life-giver would 
sooner go to the souls that need Him 
most, and that where the blight of sin 
has fallen the heaviest, and the reaping 
has been the most bitter, He would 
hasten the more eagerly to bring His 



3<3 Look Up and Hope. 

tender, compassionate touch to the heart 
that is hopeless, forsaken, and crushed. 
He stands ever waiting and longing to 
enter in, that He may banish the night 
and bring the Easter dawn of a new, glad, 
holy life to just such souls. I know many 
prison cells that are now brightened by 
His presence, and many, many hearts 
beating, still, it Is true, beneath the stripes, 
and yet beating with glad, new feelings 
and a joy that dark surroundings cannot 
shut out. So is it a wonder that my 
message this Easter time to all that read 
these few pages is an earnest plea for 
them to seek the loving, living, personal 
Saviour who can do so much for them? 
Often do I quote to those who seem to 



Look Up and Hope. 31 

be groping in a half dawn, battling their 
weary way through the clouds and mist, 
those strong, true lines that speak of 
Christ the Saviour as He is : — 

Reality ! Reality ! 

Lord Jesus Christ, Thou art to me. 

From the spectral mists and driving clouds, 

From the shifting shadows and phantom crowds, 

From unreal worlds and unreal lives 

Where truth with falsehood feebly strives, 

From the passing away, the chance and change, 

Flickerings, vanishings, swift and strange, — 

I turn to my glorious rest on Thee, 

Who art the grand Reality. 

Reality in greatest need ; 

Lord Jesus Christ, Thou art indeed. 

Is the pilot real who alone can guide 

The drifting ship through midnight tide ? 

Is the life-boat real as it nears the wreck, 

And the saved ones leap from the parting deck ? 



32 Look Up and Hope. 

Is the haven real where the barque may flee 
From the autumn gales of the wild North sea ? 
Reality indeed art Thou, 
My Pilot, Life-boat, Haven now. 

But as we speak of Life, other thoughts 
crowd into my mind. Life is not given 
for selfish ends. No flower, no creature, 
no being, has ever been created or 
ordained by God to live for itself alone, 
nor are good gifts given to be enjoyed or 
shut up within the heart of the one who 
receives them. The snows melt, the 
rains fall, and, drop by drop, stream by 
stream, the living, singing, rippling tor- 
rent gains its strength gladly and joyfully. 
It runs down the mountain side, through 
the forest, along the meadow, away, away, 



Look Up and Hope. 33 

ever downward and onward towards the 
river and the sea. Always receiving, it 
is always giving. Its waters are clear and 
fresh and sparkling, because it keeps 
them not for itself. Standing away up 
on the mountain where you cannot see 
the stream, you can yet trace its course, 
for the grass is greener, the trees are 
stronger, and the whole country is bright- 
ened by its passing through. Cattle 
quench their thirst; little birds stoop 
and drink in its freshness, and it comes 
to all as a reviving blessing. Look at the 
contrast. The pool that receives the 
rain and has no outlet, gives nothing to 
others, so the water which was once clear 
and sweet becomes polluted, stagnant, 
3 



34 Look Up and Hope. 

while slimy scum gathers upon its dark 
breast. Myriads and myriads of noxious 
fermentations spread disease and danger 
to the swamp around it. It has seemed 
to me that some hearts are like the living 
spring, while other selfish souls are like 
the stagnant pond. God gave to both 
at first, but one has gladly given out to 
others, and to that one an ever-fresh 
supply has come ; but to the other selfish, 
stagnant experiences comes misery, for 
they have lost themselves that which 
might have been so precious to them 
and to others. 

The life that Christ can bring to the 
heart He enters must be a life that can 
be " read and known of all men," as 
pure, strong, true, and victorious ! 



Look Up and Hope. 35 

When the spring comes you know it : 
flowers and leaves, song-birds and sun- 
beams proclaim it ; and so it is with the 
life upon which the Sun of Righteousness 
has risen. You can no more keep it 
from the knowledge of the world around 
than you can hide the results of spring- 
time in the forest. But what a miserable, 
cold, stiff, unlovely thing religion seems to 
be from some people's rendering of it ! 
Religion is not a creed or belief; not 
something which we are to accept and 
tack on to our life to make it respectable ; 
not a performing of some duties and an 
acceptance of some obligations. Religion, 
if it is anything, is life, — new life coming 
into the soul, as truly as spring comes into 



36 Look Up and Hope, 

Nature, making all things new ; and it is 
this kind of religion and this alone that 
can bring victory to the soul, peace to the 
heart, and constant strength to the one 
whose good resolutions and efforts would 
otherwise prove so fruitless and discourag- 
ingly weak. 

Victory ! What a ringing, cheering 
word that is ! Oh, how much it means 
to weary, hard-pressed warriors who have 
toiled and suffered bravely, faced the foe 
and stood the storm of shot and shell ! 
Victory is sweet because it has always 
meant a battle to gain it. As the cheer 
rises and falls in notes of joy upon the 
calm, still air, it is all the gladder and 
fuller because it takes the place of the 



Look Up and Hope. 37 



crash and thunder of tumult and strife. 
Souls that most truly rejoice to-day in 
the calm and rest of the peace that Christ 
can bring, know full well what a storm 
and struggle, what a conflict with doubts 
and fears, and what a battle with self pre- 
ceded that entrance of light into their 
hearts. A great general among the 
ancients, when urged to cease from the 
wars and struggles with the foes of his 
State, that they might enjoy a season 
of peace, answered tersely, « Pax paritur 
bello," — » Peace is born of war ! " 
Truly in things spiritual it can be said 
that peace, the true, deep, lasting peace 
of the soul, is only born after the battle 
has been fought out and gained; the 



38 Look Up and Hope. 

foe not parleyed with, but conquered; 
the wrong mastered, and the right en- 
throned. Oh, the fallacy of soothing a 
guilty conscience ; oh, the danger of 
crying peace, peace, where there is no 
peace; oh, the pity of saying to the 
soul, "only believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ," when the conscience rises up 
and shows that heart, that something is 
necessary before any belief can bring 
peace. 

There are some who will seek peace, but 
who will not pay the cost. They want the 
sense of sins pardoned, of a guilty con- 
science stilled, of safety for the future ; 
but they are too cowardly to fight the 
matter out, to face and deal with them- 



Look Up and Hope, 39 

selves, their doubts, their allowed wrong- 
doings. They want the flag of victory 
hoisted and the reign of peace proclaimed 
in the citadel, but they are not ready to 
have the enemy cast out or the evil guest 
slain. They parley • they want half and 
half measures; they would hold to the 
skirts of the King of Righteousness with 
one hand for fear He will forsake them, 
but they still hold tight to the things they 
have liked and followed after with the 
other. This will always prove a failure, 
a miserable defeat. It cannot be other- 
wise. 

When the dear Christ-life enters in, 
when the soul lays down its arms of 
rebellion, the Lord himself casts out the 



40 Look Up and Hope. 

enemies and brings in a power that not 
only saves, but keeps the soul. There 
is then an influence within that can 
enable the Christ-follower to meet each 
difficulty, to face each temptation, to go 
through each battle, and yet to be ever 
victorious. The glad song of triumph 
and joy can go up from the heart as 
naturally and as constantly as the songs 
of the little bird in the sunshine, for the 
new life is a risen life indeed, that has 
within it a power far exceeding human 
effort or courage or determination. Life 
in the natural world is a struggle against 
disease, danger, and death; life in the 
spiritual world is a fight against sin and 
evil, and soul- spoiling influences. No 



Look Up mid Hope. 41 

one can enter into the new life and 
make a success of it who thinks he can 
easily and effortlessly drift onward to a 
haven of rest on calm seas without strug- 
gle or sacrifice. Christ-following while 
in this world will always mean a warfare, 
and it is only those who will light the 
good fight of faith, who will finish their 
course with songs of victory. But is it 
not those very struggles, those very bat- 
tles for the resisting of evil and the 
advance in a new life, that bring with 
strengthening of character brave pur- 
poses, and a daily growth in grace? 
The finest, strongest trees are not those 
hidden away in sheltered nooks, but the 
tall pines and firs of the mountain side, 



42 Look Up and Hope. 

where the strong winds sweep. They 
are tempered, tested, and strengthened 
by their battle with the storm, and it is 
they that attain the strongest, noblest 
growth. 

Many of you are where you are to-day 
because you yielded to the tide instead 
of battling against it. As you look back 
upon the past you can see point after 
point where you weakened your own 
character for want of the courage to 
stand up and brave the storm. You 
could have strengthened your character, 
but instead you just drifted, and that 
drifting weakened you, and every battle 
lost proved a further sapping away of its 
strength. But this must not make you 



Look Up and Hope. 43 

hopeless. Let it rather strengthen and 
inspire you to valiant efforts in the future. 
I know and understand you as perhaps 
very few can, for have I not, since God 
sent me to you, entered into your lives 
and learned to love you? And I, who 
know many of your difficulties, tempta- 
tions, and suffering, and something of what 
awaits you when you step out again into 
the world, can tell you that I am gaining 
fresh hope each day, and feel a stronger 
confidence that thousands of you are 
coming forth into the world new men in 
Christ Jesus, so that old things may in- 
deed pass away and all things become 
new. The outside world has been dis- 
cussing theories, collecting statistics, for 



44 Look Up and Hope. 

years, upon what it calls a the criminal 
problem." They have written papers 
and given learned discourses upon the 
question, "Can the Criminal be Re- 
claimed ?" I turn to you and say that 
the problem lies in your hands, not 
theirs. The men who will turn to the 
Power from above that can make them 
strong, pure, brave, and victorious, can 
come out a great army of resolute souls 
who shall prove by their future how truly 
the past can be redeemed ; and the path 
they make through the difficulties and 
obstacles which must, for a time, face 
them, will make it all the easier for the 
many feet that will in the future follow 
them. 



Look Up and Hope. 45 

God bless you ! I cannot look at the 
flowers of spring, I cannot listen to the 
singing of birds, I cannot see the glad 
sunshine, without praying for you in the 
darkness of your prison cell. All life is 
changed to me since I learned to love 
you, and into the very depth of my soul 
the mother's yearning over you has 
grown day by day. My life is yours, and 
if by word of lip or pen, by work or sac- 
rifice, I can help you, you can always rely 
on me as your true friend who cares and 
understands about your present and your 
future. 



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SEASONS. Published by A. D. 
F. RANDOLPH CO., Fifth Avenue, 
New York. 

23ttS Of 33umts!}etJ (ErOltL Four miniature vol- 
umes. Selections from — I. Robert Browning. 
II. George Eliot. III. John Ruskin. IV. 
William Wordsworth. Sold separately. White 
cloth. Each, 25 cents, or boxed, per set, $1.00. 

Miniature volumes, containing the most refined and 
helpful thoughts to be found in the works of these 
standard authors. The "Bits" are arranged under 
subjects, such as "Hints for Women," "Living for 
Others," "Authorship," and "Style," and a variety 
of others, and afford much of the spiritual encourage- 
ment and comfort that all need in their daily experience 
of life. These volumes are beautifully printed. 

1&\i% of <©re from ^rectOUS IHttteS. Four mini- 
ature volumes of selected passages from the 
writings of Jeremy Taylor, George Herbert, 
F. W. Faber, Frederick W. Robertson. White 
cloth. Each, 25 cents, or boxed, per set, $1.00. 

" Dainty little volumes, containing selections made 
with rare good judgment and admirable taste, — a volume 
being devoted to each author. As aids to meditation 
they cannot be too highly commended." 

^btflittg. A Selection of Religious Verse. Com- 
piled by the editor of "Rest" and " Peace." 
48mo. Printed with red rule, bound in cloth, 
25 cents. 

" A little book of devotional poetry, issued with that 
taste in which this house excels. Intended mainly for 
presents, and admirably adapted for the purpose. 



Conffrmg* A Selection of Religious Verse. 481110. 
Printed with red rule, bound in cloth, 25 cents. 

"The character of the contents may be inferred from 
the title of the books. The poems are complete, not 
simply a collection of extracts, and are not contained in 
the volumes ' Rest ' and ' Peace.' " 

Peace ; WQZ (&Utet pJOUV. 48™°- Printed with 
red rule, bound in cloth, 25 cents. 

" Not simply extracts, but complete poems, admira- 
bly selected. One of the prettiest little books of the 
season, and as valuable as pretty." 

iftegt : Wqt Eranqutl ?§0Ut\ 4$ m o. Printed with 
red rule, bound in cloth, 25 cents. 

" They are not mere extracts, but complete poems, 
gems of poetry, gems of the printer's and the binder's 
arts, — a pleasure to behold, and withal a help .to those 
who love to commune with God and Christ in the lan- 
guage of poetry." 

iEHen'g W()0Ujgfttg for H5UlU A selection for 
every day in the year. Chosen and arranged by 
Rose Porter. 32mo, cloth, 25 cents ; white 
cloth, silver edges and stamping, boxed, 50 cents. 

" Nice perception and judgment have been shown by 
Miss Porter in these selections for daily readings. A 
month has been assigned to each of the men from whose 
writings thoughts have been chosen. As, for example, 
quotations for the readings in January are from Mar- 
cus Aurelius ; for February, James Anthony Froude ; 
Thomas Hughes, Julius and Augustus Hare, Benjamin 
Whichcote, Charles Kingsley, John Ruskin, Frederick 
D. Maurice, Frederick W. Robertson, Thomas Carlyle, 
Robert Browning, and George Herbert filling out the 
rest of the year." 



Somen's £I)Oun,rjts for OTomem A selection 

for every day in the year. Chosen and arranged 
by Rose Porter. 32mo, cloth, 25 cents ; 
white cloth, silver edges and stamping, boxed, 
50 cents. Diary form, cloth, silver edges, inter- 
leaved, boxed, 65 cents; white cloth, 85 cents. 

"A month has been assigned to each of the women 
from whose writings beautiful thoughts have been 
chosen. As, for example, quotations from Mrs. Brown- 
ing's writings furnish the daily readings for January ; 
George Eliot, those for February; Adelaide Procter, 
Dora Greenwell, Mrs. Jameson, Dinah Mulock, Jean 
Ingelow, Mrs. Norton, Mrs. Taylor, and Christina G. 
Rossetti filling out the rest of the year." 

£f}0iu$f)ts for £Hnt from American statesmen* 

A selection for every day in the year. Chosen 
and arranged by Rose Porter. 32mo, cloth, 
25 cents ; white cloth, silver edges and stamping, 
boxed, 50 cents. 

" The selections are from the following statesmen : 
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, 
John Quincy Adams, John Randolph, Henry Clay, 
Daniel Webster, William H. Seward, Charles Sumner, 
Abraham Lincoln, Wendell Phillips, and James Abram 
Garfield." 

5Tfjousf}ts for SHottun from .famous OTomett. 

A selection for every day in the year. Chosen 
and arranged by Rose Porter. 321x10, cloth, 
25 cents ; white cloth, silver edges and stamping, 
boxed, 50 cents. 

"The selections are from the following famous 
women : Madame de Sevigne, Madame Guion, Lady 
Mary Wortley Montagu, Madame de Stael, Madame 
de Genlis, Madame d'Arblay, Joanna Baillie, Harriet 
Martineau, Maria Edgeworth, Frederika Bremer, Mary 
Howitt, Madame de Gasparin." 



Wtyt 33 lues (STute, u Hospital for Broken Resolu- 
tions," " The Measuring Rod," "My Possible 
Self," ''Pull out the Plug." Five bright 
stories by Delia Lyman Porter. 24mo. 
Paper, each 10 cents ; the five in one volume, 
cloth, 50 cents. 

"Written in a bright and entertaining way, and full 
of suggestions and help." 

Wqz Celestial Country From the rhythm of 

Saint Bernard of Cluny. Translated by John 
Mason Neale, D.D. White cloth, 25 cents; 
panel edition, 75 cents. 

A dainty edition, which may be enclosed in a letter; 
put up in a white cloth, with a gilt rule and a gilt 
lettering. 

Hatls $tepS SHpfoatfK A Scripture Text and 
Selection of Poetry for Every Day in the Year, 
a page for every day. i6mo. Ornamental cloth, 
red edges, 75 cents ; white cloth, gilt edges, 
$1.00. 

Particularly well suited to help one in the memory 
of the words of Scripture and such thoughts as we all 
need to he often and freshly reminded of. The selec- 
tions are made with really admirable skill and sense of 
fitness. — A dvance. 

As a devotional book it is unsurpassed. — Bal. Pres. 

New York : A. D. F. RANDOLPH CO., 
Fifth Avenue. 

Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price. 



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